


over and over, announcing your place in the family of things

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [39]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Baby Fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Protective Steve Rogers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, baby feels, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26439454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.Winter 1977: Samantha
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Series: The Long Way Around [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1402126
Comments: 73
Kudos: 228





	over and over, announcing your place in the family of things

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a few reasons:  
> 1) I had an unexpected phone call with my remaining parent and wanted to write something fluffy to clear about the noise in my head  
> 2) I wanted to write something fluffy before I go into the next big part of this universe  
> 3) I wanted to make sure I still knew how to write things under 10k words
> 
> Unbetad. You know me by now.

**Day 1**

Darcy settled back on the couch and rested her feet on the coffee table. Scrabble had curled up beside her, purring contentedly. On her lap, Samantha squirmed, wrestling against her blankets with her face scrunched in displeasure. Darcy adjusted the wrap of the blanket. “There you go,” she said softly. “Stretch them arms a little.”

From down the hall, she heard the bathroom door open and she rolled her eyes as Steve called out. “Everything okay?”

“Still yes!” she assured him, dropping her head back against the sofa. The door closed again, and she turned her attention back to the baby. “It was touch-and-go for the three minutes Daddy left us alone,” she cooed, “but somehow we made it through, didn’t we?”

They had been discharged from the hospital at eight that morning. Friends had been filtering in and out all day with meals and presents and kisses, but now it was almost dinner time and Darcy was feeling prickly. She was hungry and not in the mood for any of the fifteen casseroles that had been prepared. The guests had tapered off and she was confident that they would be uninterrupted for the rest of the night which had her nerves twisted and fighting the relief she was feeling to finally have her house free of visitors.

And to say that Steve was hovering would be…grossly understating things. She practically had to shove him into the shower so she could get fifteen minutes to herself while they waited for their Chinese to be delivered. It was sweet that he was worried—that he was treating both her and Samantha like they were made of glass, making sure she was okay every ten minutes, offering to take the baby any time it seemed like she might need to move or get up or go to the bathroom. It was sweet. And born entirely out of the stupid amount of love he had for both of them.

And it was already driving her insane.

The doorbell rang and Samantha began to wail. Darcy felt a moment of panic before she set her feet down and carefully scooped her baby up, tucking her into the crook of her arm to be able to open the door with a free hand. There was an unpleasant amount of struggling with the crying baby, the money, and the food, but they managed and had resettled back on the couch when Steve appeared in the doorway of the living room.

He was across the room in a second. “What can I—”

“I’m okay,” Darcy insisted, shifting in her corner of the couch. “I think she’s just hungry.” She passed Samantha to him long enough to slip her arm out of the sleeve of her sweatshirt and unhook her bra. “Okay,” she huffed out the word and beckoned for the baby again. She was relieved there was no fighting or readjusting to get Sam to latch onto her breast and start to eat. The lactation specialist had heaped praise on her at the hospital—as if this was something over which she had any real control—and told her it was a good sign that the baby had caught on so quickly.

So even though she’d graduated from hungry to _famished_ in only a few minutes, and even though the greasy Chinese smelled so good her mouth was watering, Darcy let out a hum of relief and brushed her hand over Samantha’s silky brown hair. “Good latch, baby girl.”

Steve was watching her with a mix of fascination and anxiety when she looked up. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just eat while the food is hot,” she suggested. Her stomach growled loudly. “And then I’ll eat when she’s finished.” She already knew she would not be able to manage to eat and breastfeed at the same time. He looked from her to the bag of white takeout boxes before he got up and pulled the coffee table to the right. “What are you doing?” she asked, watching as he placed the food on the floor near her feet and then slid the ottoman in front of her. He popped open the containers one by one and set them on the edge of the table. “Did you seriously need to move the furniture so you can sit way too close to me while you’re eating the food that I desperately want?”

Steve only smirked as he reached for a box of beef and broccoli. “No,” he said, opting for the plastic fork instead of the chopsticks in the bag. “I’m sitting this close so that you can feed her,” he stabbed a piece of beef and then scooped up a bite of white rice from the other box. “While I feed you.”

Darcy’s shoulders dropped. “You don’t…have to do that,” she mumbled as her cheeks turned red.

“Yeah, I know,” he said and moved the fork toward her. “That’s what makes me so wonderful. Open up.”

Obediently, because she could not deny how hungry she was, Darcy opened her mouth and let Steve feed her a bite of rice and spicy beef. She swallowed with another heavy sigh of relief and grinned. “Now see, if you’d just said that nine months ago, we might not be in this situation.”

He snorted and shook his head as he prepared another bite for her. “Did you really just make a blow-job joke while you’re breastfeeding our daughter?”

“Can you think of a better, more opportune time?” Darcy scoffed and opened her mouth again. “Anyway,” she went on after she’d chewed and swallowed again. “You love my blow-job jokes.”

“Mmm,” he nodded, fighting another grin. “I’d say I agree with most of that sentence.”

Darcy choked on her laugh, not wanting to jolt and disturb the baby at her breast. She shook her head and leaned forward carefully. “I love you.”

Steve met her halfway and brushed his lips to hers. “I love you too.”

**Day 33**

This was not okay.

Steve liked to think that he was pretty good in a crisis. He used to do crisis professionally—causing and calming—and no one had ever complained about his work. He’d saved the world so many times he’d lost count. He’d faced monsters and aliens and unspeakably evil human beings with world-ending weapons, and he’d won so many times the final count had started to blur.

He’d _actually_ lost count.

That had to count for something, didn’t it?

But at that moment, running on about fifteen cumulative minutes of sleep over the last two days and pacing the house with a screaming baby in his arms, Steve would have taken the monsters and the aliens. At least he knew what was wrong with them.

“Smudge,” he begged, circling the kitchen for the hundredth time. From his place on the counter where he wasn’t supposed to be, Scrabble watched him, unimpressed. “Come on, sweetheart,” Steve said, bouncing her gently. “You’ve gotta help me out here.” He looked down at her red, angry face. “I hold you, you cry. I put you down, you cry. You’re fed, you’re changed, what…” he trailed off, feeling defeated and so tired he felt like his sanity was starting to slip a little bit. “I don’t know what else I can do for you.”

For a moment, Sam stopped screaming. She studied her father like she might take pity on him and react to any of the myriad things he was doing to please her. Things that he _knew_ usually worked. A blissful silence descended while she frowned up at him. Steve thought he might cry with relief.

But it was only a moment. And then wailing began again.

“Saaaam,” he sighed and left the kitchen and Scrabble’s judgmental gaze. The living room was trashed—strewn with toys and blankets and burping cloths and a million other things he never considered might decorate his living space. “Sam,” he shifted her in his arms and leveled his tone. “Listen. I convinced your mother that you and I would be fine if she left for a few hours to get her hair cut,” he explained over her inconsolable cries. “And if she comes back and you’re still screaming, she’s going to think that I don’t know what I’m doing and _she’s going to be right,_ ” he said the last bit in a whisper, leaning in to kiss her and check to make sure she hadn’t developed a fever or something else that would explain why she was so miserable.

It was another twenty minutes of rocking and pacing and singing every song he could think of—including Britney’s ‘Toxic’ and his mother’s favorite Irish lullaby—to no avail before he dropped onto the sofa and let his head fall back. “How are you not exhausted?” he asked his tiny, furious child, before he sighed heavily. “Okay, kiddo,” he said, keenly aware that Darcy could walk in at any moment and unmask him for the truly terrible father he was turning out to be. “I got one trick left.”

Steve took a deep breath and began singing one more time.

_“Who's strong and brave, here to save the American Way?  
Who vows to fight like a man for what's right night and day?_

Samantha stopped screaming abruptly. Steve stared back, so surprised he almost stopped singing. But when her face wrinkled, ready for another round of rage, he rushed onto the next line.

_Who will campaign door-to-door for America?  
Carry the flag shore to shore for America  
From Hoboken to Spokane  
The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan!_

Her whole face had relaxed now, and the tension he had felt in her little body before seemed to be ebbing away. He kept singing, lowering his voice now that they were no longer competing for volume, terrified that if he stopped now, she would start to cry again.

_We can't ignore there's a threat and a war we must win  
Who'll hang a noose on the goose-stepping goons from Berlin?_

Sam’s eyes were starting to close. Steve thought he might weep with joy and relief.

 _Who will indeed lead the call for America?_  
 _Who'll rise or fall, give his all for America?_  
 _Who's here to prove that we can_?

She was asleep in his arms. Her whole body entirely relaxed, her breathing deep and regular and her eyes closed with her long eyelashes brushing the tops of her pink cheeks.

_The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan!”_

Steve sighed, the relief that accompanied the blissful, perfect silence sank all the way down to his toes. Carefully—more carefully than any time he handled nuclear weapons or disarmed explosives—he shifted the baby up and onto his chest so he could lean back and stretch out on the couch. He sighed and shook his head. “That _would_ be the song that gets you to sleep,” he muttered with a soft, affectionate smile. He kissed her soft, downy hair. “That’s my girl, Smudge,” he whispered, rubbing a hand over her back when she settled in, fully, miraculously, and wonderfully asleep on his chest. “And we’re never telling your mother about this.”

**Day 68**

Junie looked surprised when they opened the door. She looked at the clock—it was barely after eight o’clock. “You didn’t have to rush back, honey,” she clucked her tongue, setting her book aside as she got to her feet from the armchair. “We’ve been just fine.”

“I know,” Darcy smiled, letting Steve help her out of her coat. He hung them both up in the hall closet. “I just…” she paused and bit her lip.

June looked sympathetic and reached out to rub Darcy’s arm. “I understand,” she said quietly, glancing over her shoulder to acknowledge Steve to offer him the same comforting smile. “She was a perfect baby,” she informed them both before she looked back to Darcy. “Any time you two need a night out, you just call Grandma Junie and I’ll drop whatever I’m doing.”

Darcy grinned and wrapped her arms around the older woman. “I love you,” she said when June pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “Thank you so much.”

Junie was gone a few minutes later, scoffing and shaking off their offers to pay her for her few hours of babysitting. Darcy crossed the room and met Steve in the doorway to the dining room and leaned into him, resting her forehead on his chest. He kissed her head before she looked up and winced. “Do you think I’m a dumb hormonal mess?”

Steve grinned down at her and shook his head. “I think you’re a hormonal mess,” he assured her. Because what else could explain the way Darcy had found herself on the brink of tears after ordering dessert during their first night out since Samantha had been born. “But I’m glad we came home,” he said and bent to kiss her gently. “I missed her too.”

They checked on Sam together, careful not to make any sounds as they crept to and from her crib before retreating to the living room to eat the slices of cheesecake Steve had asked the waiter to wrap up to go while Darcy had tried to stop from dissolving into silent, embarrassed sobs in the bathroom.

Scrabble hopped up and curled himself in Darcy’s lap, purring like a small diesel engine while they traded bites of chocolate and peanut butter cheesecake and went to bed soon after.

**Author's Note:**

> The next fic in this series will include a time jump. As much as I love it, I don't fancy the idea of writing this series for the next five years, which is what will happen if I keep going at this pace. And since time supposedly flies once you have babies, it seems like a good time to make a few leaps. 
> 
> In the meantime, I hope you liked this, it contains two scenes I've been wanting to write since this idea first struck me back in May 2019.
> 
> <3 <3 <3 love you bbs


End file.
